“The Yeomen may yammer on about how the south shall rise again, but this is ultimately all bark without any bite. We, however, are the direct opposite”- James Ronald Chalmers, founding member of the Order of the South

Order of the South

History-In 1865, the Forces of the United States Army put an end to the CSA, ending four years of long and brutal fighting and Slavery was ended. Never-the-less, many Southerners were unhappy with the changes that came with the destruction of slavery and other effects of the lost war. A few formed into various hate groups such as the KKK and other people on that line. However, some conceived of a more long-term solution.

On January 24th, 1866, 35 prominent former CSA figures began planning for a way to restore the south to prominence at dinner and created the Order of the South to allow for a second, successful war of succession. The original plan was to simply pool money and wait for a second uprising to happen (which they believed would happen in the next couple of decades due to ‘federalist tyranny’ and racial problems), but would convene every two years to see if something was needed or case something came up. For the first twelve years, the order was a completely clandestine effort; they made no effort to draw attention by doing ‘symbolic but ultimately counterproductive’ moves such as harming blacks, simply pooling money and letting a few dozen more members in. However, in 1878, the order did a major change.

One James Anderson, an already sucsessful investor in emerging southern industries sugjested an amendment to the policy to increase the Order's ability to serve the comming revolution would be enhanced by investing in southern industry. While they were at first hostile to converting the rural south from a rural to industrial area, Anderson managed to convice that not only would such investment proove to be profitable, that one of the South's main weakness during the war. The Order of the South founded companies producing various products, with profits going straight to financing the Order’s needs, as well as allowing them to establish armories for production of weapons. Among them was the prototyped, but never fielded invention of William Crayton, the Kerosene powered Armored Battleframe, which they improved with various models. In 1895, the Order managed to gain access to a subterranean network of caves running in Texas, in which they converted into a giant storehouse for equipment. Arms production and stockpiling expanded greatly after the first and second world wars, capitalizing on army trained and displaced southern men to bolster their ranks. Despite having deep racist ideologies, they decided to stand by the Allies during the Second World War for various reasons, including some ideological issues of the fact that they were never particularly Anti-Semitic, but largely not to draw attention to themselves nor risking turning people against them. When the civil rights movment came up, however, they covertly supplied money to far right politicians in the south and weapons to people like the KKK, although those connections dried up after the war. At some point in the fifties they became more involved. Their industrial Capacity was further boosted in the 1980s after they developed the first Thralls, genetically engineered humans kept passive and obedient by cybernetic implants. It even began researching methods to deal with metahumans, including a program to create their own Metahuman in the 90s through various means, including the creation of a batch of Cyrogenicially preserved Metahumans known as the Southern force, as well as secretly building the Ultra-Scorpion, a 100 meter long steam powered mechanical scorpion built in the late 19th century with a tail mounted Heavy explosive cannon and motorized gatling cannons that was used during the last alien invasion, even though it was destroyed (although some people still wonder if it was completley a one of a kind move).

In General, the Order of the South stayed out of public sight, but after fighting against alien invaders and dealing with the ocasional metahuman which destroyed their factory, the Order has been forced into public sight to defend its equipment and in 1985, publically admited it's existance and how it worked for the betterment and advancement of the south, although they left out much of the details of their plan to start another civil war. After they went public, they stopped overt dealings with Klansmen and such, the inner council seeing them as being far more trouble then they are worth. They keep their racism more covert. They veremently deny 'rumours' of plans of sedition, racism and treason as mere Tinfoil hattery and keep the law off their case through charity, an army of lawyers and money keep them above the law. Never-the-less, the Order has been working behind the sceens to maintain a general state of "Southern Awareness", which ultimatly translates either directly or inderectly as localism that they see as a nessisary factor when their time comes.

Structure-As it stands, the Order of the South is divided into two main groups, Associates and the Inner circle. Associates make up the bulk of the order of the south, recruited from White Southerners and do most of the work of keeping the orginization going, overseeing vast stockpiles of weapons, doing paperwork, working as engineers in developing machinery and forces and other such jobs, as well as acting as hitmen when it is nessisary. Though they can advance somewhat through the Hierarchy of the Order, the main power rests in the heads of a few families who administrate things. The Order also owns various corperations and industries based in the south, but these are technically not part of the order and have at times been sold off when seen as the practical course of action.

Ideology-While the Order of the South’s objective of restoring the Confederate States of America has always been their ultimate goal, various events have ment that their ideology has evolved over time. As of now, their objectives was to create a Confederacy rather different of that which tried to emerge during the 1860s, for example most of them did have a somewhat more enlightened outlook on woman, allowing them to vote and a few other things (although they maintained that Husbands had the right to ‘discipline’ their wives). The second was the blacks, while they were still vehemently racist against blacks and Latin people, they had realized that blacks made poor slaves and that attempts to re-enslave them would only end badly. Exactly what fate awaited blacks was up to debate, some advocated stripping them of rights and reducing them to second class citizens, others favored sending them northwards. But in general, the main vision of the south was to create an isolationist new hierarchical society composed of the CSA and Cuba (which they desired to annex). In the new society their would be three main classes (along with various subclasses depending on region), the first being the Plantation owners, which would be composed of an agrarian elite who ruled over vast estates producing food and cash crops for export as well as ruling the nation indirectly though an upper house. Below them would be the Yeoman, the main workers who would run the economy of the South outside of agriculture, covering the middle and upper lower class of society with political representation in a lower house. Below them would be large numbers of Thralls which would serve as cheap labor and cannon fodder respectively. Any blacks not shoved north would exist as an underclass in certain areas. The economy would be very much isolated save for a few high tech imports with very little taxation and no social services beyond public education (which was only to be done on a county level) and basic police forces, but the plantation owners would have men to make sure that any real threat to their power would silently disappear into the night.

Current Status-Active, if mostly passive for the moment. Ultimately the Order is waiting for a point of major destablization in which it can make its move and move the south to the south.

Enemies-The Communist Manifester, Interpol, Fidel Castro, black people, the Left Wing in general and conspiracy theorists